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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 6 Hansard (17 June) . . Page.. 1671 ..

MR WHITECROSS (continuing):

Mr Speaker, it is not for the Chief Minister to put words into my mouth, one way or the other, about what I do or do not think about the report. If people want to know, then once I have read it I will tell them.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

MR SPEAKER: I have received a letter from Mr Moore proposing that a matter of public importance be submitted to the Assembly for discussion, namely:

The use of cannabis for medicinal purposes.

MR MOORE (4.28): Mr Speaker, this is not a debate about the recreational use of cannabis. This is a debate about compassion and it is a debate about exhausted possibilities. In November 1996, at the American elections, in Arizona there was a citizens-initiated referendum, proposition 200, and in California there was a similar proposition, proposition 215. Those propositions, Mr Speaker, dealt with the issue of medicinal use of cannabis. The notion of medicinal use of cannabis was widely supported by the populations of both of those States. It is particularly interesting, Mr Speaker, because California accounts for about 10 per cent of the American population, and Arizona would normally be considered a particularly conservative part of the United States. I think that what it reflects is a changing attitude to the medical profession and medical use of such substances as cannabis.

I was fortunate enough at the beginning of this year to have an intern named Sarah Beech operating in my office, and she prepared a paper on medicinal cannabis for me. I seek leave to table a copy of that paper, which I think members will find particularly interesting. Mr Speaker, I request that the paper be circulated. I understand that it will be circulated for members now.

Leave granted.

MR MOORE: Thank you, Mr Speaker, and thank you, members. Ms Beech, in preparing her paper, looked back at the situation in 1994 when I originally proposed an amendment to the Drugs of Dependence Act in order to provide for medicinal cannabis. Members may remember that that was passed, and then a week later the matter was reviewed by the Assembly and the legislation was withdrawn. It was withdrawn primarily on a charge led by the then Minister responsible from Labor's point of view, Mr Terry Connolly, suggesting that medicinal cannabis would be inconsistent with our international treaties. Ms Beech, who is a law student, has reviewed that matter.

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